


Summer of 1982

by Delphi



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, Holidays, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-01
Updated: 2004-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 11:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/pseuds/Delphi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A languid summer's day at the castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer of 1982

Their first summer together after the events at Godric's Hollow, Albus forgets for hours, or days even, that Voldemort isn't really gone. Every morning is bright and warm, honey yellow and kelly green. The trials are over, and the castle is so quiet that it almost seems a betrayal to love it so.

When he was a boy here, he couldn't have imagined what Hogwarts was like in the summer, or that it existed at all—never mind that the dandelion fluff floats in through the open windows, and sunbeams sprawl across the hallways, and the air smells of heather right down to the dungeons. At night, one can hear the crickets singing, and the faint drone of honeybees chasing pollen fills the afternoons.

It is in these quiet times that his ties to the castle feel their most binding. When the title of Headmaster is not merely his duty to the children, nor his support of the teachers, but something subtler and more secret, born of a promise made back in the days of the Founders. Albus swore a blood oath when he took the ring of office, and without the happy chatter of young voices in the hallways, he can hear the stones whispering, reminding him of their marriage.

The walls, the floors, the ramparts. His bedroom, the Great Hall, and the looking-glass lake reflecting the blue sky above. These things are at the heart of his happiest memories. The quiet sound of pages turning when he takes a book out onto the balcony for a Parisian breakfast of pastries and coffee. Mourning doves cooing in the eaves. The warm glow of sunlight on his face and bare feet hidden beneath his summer robes.

Silence and solitude.

Severus.

Severus Snape, wrapped around him in the very early hours of the morning. Naked, because the nights have been warm, and the sheets are light summertime cotton, a pale violet that makes Severus' skin look like buttermilk.

During the day, his young lover makes no concession to the heat. He wears his usual wardrobe of black and darkest shades of blue and green, squinting at the sunlight as though each time he sees it is the very first. His hair soaks up the sun, hot to the touch after only a few minutes outside. His skin, on the other hand, is always cool. Damp when he sweats, like melting ice.

Severus laid out in his bed is a different creature entirely. A gold-tinted pale that would tan beautifully should he ever let it. Smooth and spare. Sharp-boned with a soft, slightly concave stomach. Legs spread and arms open, sleeping with his lips parted, or else awake and panting, squirming sinuously against the sheets, eyes heavy-lidded and smouldering in a way that the hottest July afternoon cannot come close to capturing.

His mouth.

Burning.

Severus, laid out beneath him. Both of them bare and lazily kissing. Severus refuses to make love out of doors, and so Albus opens the windows and lets the soft breeze drift in around them, imagining that they are naked as heathens in the tall grass—that Severus carries a few more years and he himself a few less, and there are no more complications than should ever exist on a sweet, simple day in high summer. When Severus is shy or sullen, they have all the time in the world to take things slowly. There are so very many hours of daylight to kiss the soft skin around Severus's mouth, his lips, his ears, the spot at the base of his throat that always earns a shiver.

Albus has long since given up attempting to map the castle, but the smooth secrets of Severus's skin seem an attainable goal.

Today, they lie in until the afternoon, so tangled together that bare skin sticks together and half the time he isn't certain who is touching whom. The low rumble of Severus's moans drives him to sweet madness with the echo of buckling iron and crumbling defences.

Afterwards, with the sheets coiled limply around them, he pulls Severus into his arms and holds him, licking the salt-sweat from his shoulder. He fills the silence with a recounting of summer at his boyhood home, of running half-naked and wild with his brother. Raising jars of frogspawn, raiding their neighbours' patches and glutting themselves on stolen fruit, slinking home after dark with sticky fingers and berry-stained mouths.

Severus feigns sleep, still and silent.

He knows well enough now that Severus's unhappiness is a deeper thing than even his fiercest rages have revealed, but touching that thickly scarred place inside him is a process of days and weeks, trying to ease down the salvaged scrap barricades with sunlight and fresh air and kisses.

He moves his hand slowly over Severus's body; taps treble-clef Bach against his ribs. He closes his eyes, feeling the sunlight soaking into his skin. And when he sips, like a hummingbird, at Severus's thoughts, the bitterness of them is like stolen berries, like the young Bianco di Pitigliano he drinks with over-rich afters. The dark chill of them like sweet shade on a hot day.


End file.
